The "Big" Farm.

My dad said something the other day about The "Big" Farm. I assumed he meant my house. But he set me straight - he and mom have the "Big Farm with the little barn" and I have the "Little Farm with the Big Barn". So now that we have THAT all straightened out . . . yesterday afternoon I went up to the original "Life is Goat" farm (aka the BIG Farm) to visit. There are kids running around everywhere! The oldest one is Barley's Nutmeg (Meggy for short):

In this picture she is nibbling on my leg. She acts just like her father (Tankie) . . . loves to be right up in your business all the time and LOVES attention. She practically came and sat in my lap for snuggles when I sat on the goat deck. Her mama, Barley, knocked any other kids that tried to steal my attention out of the way! Brown must be a recessive trait . . . Barley, Aphidia, and Maybeth are all white and they are Tankie's first generation (crossed with white Angora goats). Now that these girls have been crossed back to their father (NO, this was NOT intentional! What can I say? Tankie does what he wants . . . why do you think he now lives on my farm with no girls???) we are seeing a crop of brown babies. They are so cute! Which brings us to the youngest kid, Chickadee:

Here she is getting in a little nursing time with mom. Remember Fiddy (Aphidia)? My first grandkid? Well now she is raising a kid of her own. Guess that makes me a great grandmother. Sigh. I knew I felt old. Chickadee is only a few weeks old. She still staggers when she walks. She loves to drive her mother crazy by sneaking out from under the fence and wandering around in the yard where Fid can't get to her. She is awful cute to watch though!

Rounding out the kid cuteness are Zoeboe's twins:

Bulgar and Semolina II. My mother likes to call Bulgar "booger head" because he is always trying to get into trouble. Semolina was also the name of one of Zoe's triplets from this winter, but she didn't make it through the winter. She was a bit of a runt and Zoe just didn't have enough steam to take care of three kids. We loved the name though, so have recycled (much to my sister's disgust). These two are much more skiddish (must be the Angora in them) than Meggy or Chickadee, but they will still come nibble on your pantleg if you stand still long enough. And they are still small enough to escape under the fence and eat the goose food.

On the way back to my house I saw five moose last night. I didn't get any pictures since they were running pretty fast and it was pretty dark out, but it was fun to see them anyway. One was a baby (much bigger than these goat kids though!) and he had a very soft fuzzy brown look to him.

Love,
Turtlewoman